Afterlife

by SeanO'Brien (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2010

  $3.45

  The seventies. Summer. Four students in a cottage in the middle of nowhere. Two young American women, one hell-bent on destruction. Alcohol, LSD, sex, jealousy, infidelity, and poetry. At the end of the summer, one of the four students will be dead, and another will be destroyed by his inability to let go of past memories, guilt and bitterness. 'A cracker' - Evening Standard ; 'Chills to the bone' - Independent on Sunday ; 'Rich and powerful' - Daily Mail ; ' Afterlife positively throbs with loss...It's a deeply absorbing novel that lingers in the mind like the ghosts it so ardently evokes' - Claire Kilroy, Irish Times ; 'A richly rewarding portrait of friendships under siege, full of vibrant characters and atmospheres that linger in the mind and the heart' - Sunday Telegraph .

• Used

  Hardcover
  2009

  $3.45

  Martin and Alex meet at university and - although Martin can never quite work out why - become friends. When they finish their undergraduate studies, and with the summer ahead of them before they have to think about the future, they and their respective girlfriends - Susie and Jane - rent a house in the middle of nowhere. While Jane writes and Susie finds a job at the local art college, the two boys spend their days doing little other than sleeping, drinking, smoking and trying to keep cool in scorching temperatures. As the heat builds, however so does the tension between the four; then, when a glamorous, hedonistic American student arrives in their midst, events and emotions escalate still further. A novel about power, rivalry, jealousy and - in the end - murder, Afterlife is a gripping exploration of how some outcomes are decided long before we're even aware of the options. 'Compelling and hypnotic' - Helen Dunmore. 'A convincing, darkly comic and painful take on the astonishingly poisonous world of poetry and literary aspiration' - Andrew Greig.